As a part of ongoing work for the DOE’s Hydrogen Energy Earthshot (DE-SC0023443)
the Machan and Zhang Labs have published an open access article in Energy
Advances, describing the role of polymer interactions in defining molecular catalyst
activity when heterogenized for water splitting at pH 14. Using electrochemical
techniques and electron microscopy, they found that the dispersion of Co(corroles)
could be beneficially increased when longer carbon chains were appended to the ligand
core. By restructuring the catalyst environment, catalyst stability and activity was
improved, suggesting that future work to blend the boundary between polymer and
catalyst will yield additional benefits.
